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I don't post that often over on this side of the 'Guide, normally keeping myself safely confined to the DIY pages. 
But now and then I run across something that might deserve wider comment and recognition, and this is such a case.
I've been planning on getting my Ayre preamp upgraded later this year, and needed something to use during that interval while I'm working on it, and also for my secondary system. While browsing Audiogon a week ago, I came across a good deal on a minty Cambridge Audio 840e, which piqued my interest, being as I'm rather pleased with the performance of the 840W power amp I bought last year.
It's available both in black and silver, and fortunately this one was silver, like the picture, as that's my preference by a wide margin.
At a friendly price, it wasn't much of a risk, so a bit over a week later I had it my possession, and finally found a bit of spare time yesterday to unpack it and try it in the system.
Now, this critter has lots of interesting technical features, things like a relay/resistor processor controlled volume control operating in 1 dB steps from -95 dB to 0 dB, with each input programmable for a fixed additional input attenuation for the purpose of level matching. Inputs can be custom labelled for the display, and a number of other customized configuration options are possible by bringing up the configuration utility using the mode control.
As you can see, it also offers some balanced inputs and outputs, though I don't believe the whole signal path internally is balanced. Though it's a flagship product from Cambridge Audio in England, it's not built to Ayre or Boulder Audio kinds of standards, and doesn't carry those kinds of price tags, either. The upper left in the picture above is the power supply and regulators, and that heat sink does run warm, there's a fair bit of juice there, with separate windings to feed the power to digital circuits and analog circuits for both channels.
The audio signal path is handled by their 2nd generation Terapin modules, something a bit like the Marantz HDAM modules, in that it is a custom gain block something like an IC in functionality but built discretely, a concept Mark Levinson pioneered in the 70's with John Curl.
But there are many technological terrors out there that are just not at all enthralling when it comes to listening to music. That's the true test of course. So how does it sound? Fortunately, it has little sound of it's own, which is a high complement- and the general quality overall definition and imaging had me listening to many tracks from my Mac Min far later than I intended to last night- hours later than my normal midweek bedtime.
Preamps are supposed to be one of the things easiest to get right, eh? If that were the case, there wouldn't be a market for BAT, AR, or even new production versions of classic Macintosh tube preamps.
Well recommended; highly recommended if you can find a good "pre-owned" example as I did.
And as a "bonus", the volume control remote function works on my Ayre, too!
But now and then I run across something that might deserve wider comment and recognition, and this is such a case.
I've been planning on getting my Ayre preamp upgraded later this year, and needed something to use during that interval while I'm working on it, and also for my secondary system. While browsing Audiogon a week ago, I came across a good deal on a minty Cambridge Audio 840e, which piqued my interest, being as I'm rather pleased with the performance of the 840W power amp I bought last year.
It's available both in black and silver, and fortunately this one was silver, like the picture, as that's my preference by a wide margin.
At a friendly price, it wasn't much of a risk, so a bit over a week later I had it my possession, and finally found a bit of spare time yesterday to unpack it and try it in the system.
Now, this critter has lots of interesting technical features, things like a relay/resistor processor controlled volume control operating in 1 dB steps from -95 dB to 0 dB, with each input programmable for a fixed additional input attenuation for the purpose of level matching. Inputs can be custom labelled for the display, and a number of other customized configuration options are possible by bringing up the configuration utility using the mode control.
As you can see, it also offers some balanced inputs and outputs, though I don't believe the whole signal path internally is balanced. Though it's a flagship product from Cambridge Audio in England, it's not built to Ayre or Boulder Audio kinds of standards, and doesn't carry those kinds of price tags, either. The upper left in the picture above is the power supply and regulators, and that heat sink does run warm, there's a fair bit of juice there, with separate windings to feed the power to digital circuits and analog circuits for both channels.
The audio signal path is handled by their 2nd generation Terapin modules, something a bit like the Marantz HDAM modules, in that it is a custom gain block something like an IC in functionality but built discretely, a concept Mark Levinson pioneered in the 70's with John Curl.
But there are many technological terrors out there that are just not at all enthralling when it comes to listening to music. That's the true test of course. So how does it sound? Fortunately, it has little sound of it's own, which is a high complement- and the general quality overall definition and imaging had me listening to many tracks from my Mac Min far later than I intended to last night- hours later than my normal midweek bedtime.
Preamps are supposed to be one of the things easiest to get right, eh? If that were the case, there wouldn't be a market for BAT, AR, or even new production versions of classic Macintosh tube preamps.
Well recommended; highly recommended if you can find a good "pre-owned" example as I did.
And as a "bonus", the volume control remote function works on my Ayre, too!
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